Month: February 2021

Way back in 2018, it was revealed that Dave Grohl and his mother Virginia Hanlon Grohl were working on a TV show called From Cradle To Stage. The program is based on Virginia Grohl’s book of the same name, with she wrote about the experiences she and other mothers of famous rock stars had raising them. When the show was revealed, it wasn’t attached to a network, but now it has been revealed that the show will debut on the Paramount+ streaming service. The service is set to launch on March 4, which is presumably when the show will premiere.

Back when the project was initially announced, Dave Grohl said of it, “I’m beyond excited to join in on the next step of my mother’s project to explore the stories of other musicians who were as fortunate as me, having been raised by such amazing women. Plus… I owe her one.” Virginia Grohl added that the show will feature “all the mothers around a table when they meet for the first time at a celebratory dinner where secrets and stories will be shared and compared” and said:

“I’m excited to introduce the viewing public to the strong, loving women who have supported the insistent dreams of their musical sons and daughters. To Sandi Clark, who learned the music business from a book and launched her son’s career – and Mary Weinrib, who had to cancel her own dreams of an education to allow her son to thrive with Rush. To Janis Winehouse, who recognized her daughter’s extreme talent, but was helpless to control the demons that brought that brilliant career to a tragic end. Their backgrounds vary greatly, but they have so much in common. Viewers will join all the mothers around a table when they meet for the first time at a celebratory dinner where secrets and stories will be shared and compared. It’s possible that a toast will involve a wine from the Lambert family winery — and a glass of milk for Mary Morello!”

To get a taste of the show, or at least of the Grohls, revisit Dave and Virginia Grohl’s 2017 The Late Show interview below.

It feels wrong to describe Cloud Nothings as a “veteran” indie band. After all, the group’s founder, Dylan Baldi, is still only 29. But his band has been around for more than a decade now, and along the way amassed one of the era’s most consistently strong catalogues for a loud, punk-leaning act. If this corner of the indie world has a standard bearer, it has to be Cloud Nothings.

“I mean, we’re kind of enduring by necessity, because none of us are particularly qualified to do much else,” Baldi told me recently. “But even when we started, I don’t know that the trend was nerdy rock bands from Ohio. I think people lumped us in with Japandroids that year, when the band became more popular than we had been. And then I think we got lumped in with an emo thing that was happening, which is its own world and scene that is flourishing perfectly well and always has been without us. We’re really not part of that. And we dipped in here and there, we’ve toured with The Hotelier, but that in no way makes us a functioning member of that scene. I would feel disingenuous to claim that.”

If Cloud Nothings have never really fit in anywhere since their breakthrough with 2012’s Attack On Memory, they’ve still been able to maintain a niche in a scene that continues to move farther away from what used to be the bedrock sound of indie music — heavy riffing but essentially melodic rock songs. And Baldi remains devoted to refining his craft. During the pandemic, he’s recommitted himself to songwriting, turning out songs nearly every day, and in the process produced 2020’s winning The Black Hole Understands, a throwback to the fizzier bedroom pop style of Cloud Nothings’ pre-Attack On Memory era.

The band’s latest due out Friday, The Shadow I Remember, is a return to their more aggressive style, though it was actually recorded before The Black Hole Understands. Cloud Nothings reconvened with Attack On Memory producer Steve Albini about a month before quarantine in early 2020 and quickly bashed out the energetic and feisty set, mixing pummeling rockers like “Only Light” with infectious pop tunes like “Sound Of Alarm.”

Baldi talked about the album’s creation and reflected on his band’s legacy as they enter their second decade.

What was interesting to me about The Black Hole Understands is how it reminded me of the early, pre-Attack On Memory Cloud Nothings material. Why do you think that is?

My immediate circumstances were relatively similar, which is being inside and having nothing to do, essentially. When I’m just on my own and in my head, I do end up making these sort of airier, lighter, poppier kind of things. And when I’m separated from the band, it doesn’t tend to get the aggression necessarily that comes with playing live with everybody. So, yeah, when I’m on my own, things take a little more of a Slumberland-kind of route.

Are you still writing a lot?

I was trying to do a song a day for a long time, and I’ve had to slow down because I had to start doing this job. We still put out an EP every month, actually, on Bandcamp. So, I have to at least make those four songs every month, if not more.

Were you this prolific before the pandemic?

It is a lot for me. And I really like it, actually, because it keeps the songwriting muscle in shape. Sometimes, honestly, there’s probably been a year that’s gone by with me maybe not ever sitting down and really finishing a song, because I haven’t had time. And I don’t like that. The thing I like about music is making and recording a song. That’s the most fun part to me. So, it’s been nice to have the opportunity to work so much.

I ask all musicians that I interview lately the same question: How do you feel not being on the road? I imagine this is the longest you’ve been home in a decade.

It’s just disappointing. It’s funny to be putting out so much music, and all you can really do is talk over Zoom. I can’t talk to you in real life or you can’t come see a show. That whole aspect of it is really important to me, the community that builds around music or around a band, or any kind of art that is public. And missing that feels like missing a huge part of what makes music special to me, to be corny about it.

Also, I did start the band because I wanted to leave home. That was part of the impetus behind it — “I guess we’ll start a band so I can tour and see something that isn’t Cleveland.” Because that’s essentially all I’d seen my whole life. And we kept going to farther and farther out places, and that being gone is just a little sad. But it’ll come back.

It’s interesting that you have all this music that you can’t tour behind. I imagine that by the time you can tour, you might have another new album. It’s almost like this music is destined to be orphaned.

I’ve wondered about that, about every record released in the last year. Are they just gone? You put something out and maybe it gets a review, maybe people tweet about it for a day, and then it’s gone. Your record is gone. I’m not going to record stores. I know some people are, but that’s where I would go and see a physical record and that reminds you it exists, but I haven’t done that in a year. It’s just bizarre to be creating these things that have no physical attachment to them, in my mind at least, or you can’t see the people buying it. You can’t see the people coming to shows, whether they exist or not. It’s just weird to only have the internet as a gauge for reality.

Why did you want to work with Steve Albini again?

We had to find someone pretty quickly, basically, because we wanted to get this record out originally last fall. That was my original hope, and it was already January when I wanted to book these dates. So, we had to get it together real fast. And there’s not too many people who are available that quickly, who I think would do a good enough job. But luckily, Steve Albini was around. And I think he is honestly the best for the band in a lot of ways, just because his personality just kind of vibes with ours very well. We all just want to get the thing done. We’ll be able to hang out and goof around, but we’re there to make the record. And we don’t want a specific someone leading the session or telling us, “Do things this way.” We just want to do it our own way and get it done, have a good time hanging out, and then that’s that.

I interviewed you last nine years ago, when Attack On Memory came out. And I remember there was this story that you didn’t get along with Albini, because you said in an interview that Albini played Scrabble when you were in the studio.

Yeah, the whole Scrabble thing. I don’t know what that was. Any time anyone asks me about Steve Albini, which is often, it’s always, “Oh, did he play Scrabble the whole time?” And I have to be like, “No, that’s not what he did.” There is downtime when you’re doing something like that. I’ll look at my phone, and Steve Albini will play Scrabble. It wasn’t some cruel remark where I was trying to tear him down. I was just like, “Hey, he likes Scrabble.” I think people thought that meant he was lazy, which is insane, because he’s the opposite of that.

This time, there was honestly less downtime. We were just cruising through it, because we only had six days. We kept him there pretty late on the last day. And I do still feel bad about that, because I think he really wanted to go.

You’ve been making records for more than decade, and you’re still only 29. You’re obviously still pretty young, but Cloud Nothings by now has a real body of work. For instance, you recently put out a 10th-anniversary edition of your first record, Turning On. Do you ever reflect on the band’s arc so far?

Honestly, not so much, until this last year, where I didn’t really have much else to do. And so I did spend a lot of time thinking about the past and looking at old photos and all kinds of ephemera from the last 10, 11 years.

How do you feel about how the band’s progressed in that time?

The main thing is that I feel like just as a band, we just got the hang of it. In a way, not knowing 100 percent of what we were doing on some of the older records might have fueled certain choices that people actually really liked. But as a songwriter and person today, there’s probably stuff I would not do, for better or for worse. I feel like I’ve gotten more into the idea of just having to work at it all the time, and having to constantly be writing. Because there was a point where I felt like I didn’t necessarily have to do that. I thought I had cracked the code, like “I know how to write a song.” But there’s no code where you go and put in things exactly some way and that’s your song and it’s good. That’s a recipe for making something bad, it turns out. Now, I’ve fallen into a rhythm of constantly doing things. And that to me feels like a better pattern.

What about indie rock in general? The difference between now and when you put out Attack On Memory is pretty incredible.

The things we got lumped in with then were just sort of other things that maybe weren’t even really truly big trends. The big thing from 2012 was Grimes, and that obviously got really big. It’s funny to not be trendy when you get popular and continue to not be trendy as the years go by, and you see audiences change and the size of rooms and audiences. It gets bigger and smaller depending on what year or what record we put out. But I can’t pretend to know what people are thinking. I know what I like, and I feel like as long as we keep making music that I think is okay, there will be some audience there for that.

The Shadow I Remember is out Friday on Carpark. Get it here.

Netflix knew that we’d need plenty of bingewatching material to get us through the final stretches of the pandemic, and yes, the streaming service is determined not to disappoint. Where would we be without all of this streaming goodness? I don’t want to know, but March is bringing us far too much streaming content, or at least, more content than anyone could possibly finish (to completion) in March. There’s no telling exactly how Netflix has been pulling off all of these fresh offerings without the coffers running dry, but we’re definitely not complaining.

Tons of original offerings are on the way, including a series that’s tangential to Sherlock Holmes. Speaking of investigations, there’s a true crime series that’s nothing like any true crime series that you’ve seen before. Elsewhere, Michelle Obama stars in a series with some lovable co-stars who threaten to steal the show, and a Hip-Hop legend gets a much overdue documentary treatment. These offerings look too good to be believed.

Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) Netflix in March.

The Irregulars: (Netflix series streaming 3/26)

This series is set in 19th century London, where Dr. Watson and the elusive Sherlock Holmes enlist a group of misfits to solve supernatural crimes. Watson is said to be sinister in this series, and Holmes is simply mysterious, so this group is probably on their own to fight a dark power to save humanity, both in London and around the globe.

Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell: (Netflix documentary film streaming 3/1)

The Notorious B.I.G. gets the celebratory spotlight in this documentary that charts his journey from hustler to rap king. It’s an origin story fit for a legend, and although his lyrics were frequently autobiographical, rare footage, testimonies, and in-depth interviews will teach you plenty that you didn’t know about the Hip-Hop icon before hitting play.

Murder Among the Mormons: (Netflix documentary series streaming 3/3)

Salt Lake City is struck by a series of fatal pipe bombs in 1985, and it’s easily one of the most shocking crimes in the history of the Mormon community. A criminal mastermind is to blame, and clues spring from early Mormon documents and diaries found scattered amid a rare document collection that’s in possession of one of the victims.

Waffles + Mochi: (Netflix series streaming 3/16)

Michelle Freaking Obama stars in this show about two curious puppets, (obviously) Waffles and Mochi, who explore the world through food and culture. This also doubles as an educational series about fresh-ingredient cooking, so learn how to become a chef, along with the puppets and a former first lady. Don’t resist this one!

Here’s the full list of titles coming to Netflix in March:

Avail. 3/1
Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell
Batman Begins
Blanche Gardin: Bonne Nuit Blanche
Crazy, Stupid, Love
Dances with Wolves
DC Super Hero Girls: Season 1
I Am Legend
Invictus
Jason X
Killing Gunther
LEGO Marvel Spider-Man: Vexed by Venom
Nights in Rodanthe
Power Rangers Beast Morphers: S2
Rain Man
Step Up: Revolution
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
The Dark Knight
The Pursuit of Happyness
Training Day
Two Weeks Notice
Year One

Avail. 3/2
Black or White
Word Party: Season 5

Avail. 3/3
Moxie
Murder Among the Mormons
Parker
Safe Haven

Avail. 3/4
Pacific Rim: The Black

Avail. 3/5
Dogwashers
Nevenka: Breaking the Silence
Pokémon Journeys: The Series: Part 4
Sentinelle

Avail. 3/8
Bombay Begums
Bombay Rose

Avail. 3/9
The Houseboat
StarBeam: Season 3

Avail. 3/10
Dealer
Last Chance U: Basketball
Marriage or Mortgage

Avail. 3/11
The Block Island Sound
Coven of Sisters

Avail. 3/12
Love Alarm: Season 2
The One
Paper Lives
Paradise PD: Part 3
YES DAY

Avail. 3/14
Audrey

Avail. 3/15
Bakugan: Armored Alliance
The BFG
The Last Blockbuster
The Lost Pirate Kingdom
Zero Chill

Avail. 3/16
RebellComedy: Straight Outta the Zoo
Savages
Waffles + Mochi

Avail. 3/17
Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal
Under Suspicion: Uncovering the Wesphael Case

Avail. 3/18
B: The Beginning Succession
Cabras da Peste
Deadly Illusions
The Fluffy Movie
Nate Bargatze: The Greatest Average American
Skylines

Avail. 3/19
Alien TV: Season 2
Country Comfort
Formula 1: Drive to Survive: Season 3
Sky Rojo

Avail. 3/20
Jiu Jitsu

Avail. 3/22
Navillera
Philomena

Avail. 3/23
Loyiso Gola: Unlearning

Avail. 3/24
Seaspiracy
Who Killed Sara?

Avail. 3/25
DOTA: Dragon’s Blood
Secret Magic Control Agency

Avail. 3/26
A Week Away
Bad Trip
Big Time Rush: Seasons 1-4
Croupier
The Irregulars
Magic for Humans by Mago Pop
Nailed It!: Double Trouble

Avail. 3/29
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Rainbow High: Season 1

Avail. 3/30
7 Yards: The Chris Norton Story
Octonauts & the Ring of Fire

Avail. 3/31
At Eternity’s Gate
Haunted: Latin America

Here’s the full list of titles leaving Netflix in March:

Leaving 3/3
Rectify: Seasons 1-4

Leaving 3/7
Hunter X Hunter: Seasons 1-3

Leaving 3/8
Apollo 18
The Young Offenders

Leaving 3/9
November Criminals
The Boss’s Daughter

Leaving 3/10
Last Ferry
Summer Night

Leaving 3/13
Spring Breakers
The Outsider

Leaving 3/14
Aftermath
Marvel & ESPN Films Present: 1 of 1: Genesis
The Assignment
The Student

Leaving 3/16
Chicken Little
Deep Undercover: Collections 1-3
Love Dot Com: The Social Experiment
Silver Linings Playbook

Leaving 3/17
All About Nina
Come and Find Me

Leaving 3/20
Conor McGregor: Notorious

Leaving 3/22
Agatha and the Truth of Murder
I Don’t Know How She Does It

Leaving 3/24
USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage

Leaving 3/25
Blood Father
The Hurricane Heist

Leaving 3/26
Ghost Rider

Leaving 3/27
Domino

Leaving 3/30
Extras: Seasons 1-2
Killing Them Softly
London Spy: Season 1
The House That Made Me: Seasons 1-3

Leaving 3/31
Arthur
Chappaquiddick
Enter the Dragon
God’s Not Dead
Hedgehogs
Inception
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Kung Fu Hustle
Molly’s Game
Money Talks
School Daze
Secret in Their Eyes
Sex and the City: The Movie
Sex and the City 2
Sinister Circle
Skin Wars: Seasons 1-3
Taxi Driver
The Bye Bye Man
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Prince & Me
Weeds: Seasons 1-7

Justice League has gotten most of the attention, but of the two Zack Snyder movies coming out this year, I’m way more excited for Netflix’s Army of the Dead. For one thing, it’s a zombie heist movie. You can put any noun before “heist movie” (like hurricane) and I will watch it. Also, say what you will about Snyder, but the guy knows how to make a good zombie movie, as evidenced by his 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake.

“Following a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries take the ultimate gamble, venturing into the quarantine zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted,” reads the official plot synopsis for Army of the Dead, which stars Dave Bautista, Matthias Schweighöfer, Ella Purnell, Ana de la Reguera, Garret Dillahunt, Raúl Castillo, Omari Hardwick, and Tig Notaro. Snyder described the movie as a “full-blown, balls-to-the-wall zombie heist movie… So you expect pure zombie mayhem, and you get that, 100 percent. But also you get these really amazing characters on a fantastic journey. It’s going to surprise people that there’s warmth and emotion with these great characters.”

Check out the teaser (which has Suicide Squad-meets-Vegas vibes) above. Army of the Dead premieres on Netflix on May 21.

What is a hungry food writer to do when not one, not two, but three newsworthy fast-food sandwiches drop in the same month? Eat them all in the same day and turn them into a single big review rather than three separate reviews in an attempt to avoid having to write about sandwiches three different times in a single week because, at the end of the day, these are all just sandwiches, for better or worse? Yep, exactly that.

Which is why I’m writing from bed. Sprawled out and stuffed like a Thanksgiving turducken.

As you might imagine, writing about food is often cool. But there’s nothing too exciting about having 10 sandwich buns in an afternoon. That’s right, 10 buns, fam — not six. Because today’s menu features the Popeyes Cajun Flounder Sandwich, Wendy’s Jalapeño Popper Chicken Sandwich, and the new McDonald’s Crispy Chicken Sandwich (which is actually three different sandwiches, hence the four extra buns).

Here’s the verdict on how they taste.

McDonald’s New Crispy Chicken Sandwich

On February 24th, McDonald’s dropped their brand new Crispy Chicken Sandwich and if that’s news to you, we get it. The Golden Arches making a play in the wild world of fast food chicken sandwiches feels like it should be a more notable moment but, as you can see, there’s a lot going on in the world of fast-food sandwiches this month. The McDonald’s entry, while an improvement over McDonald’s old chicken sandwich, kind of deserves to be ignored in comparison to the heavy hitters from Popeyes and Wendy’s.

But what this sandwich lacks in noteworthiness, it makes up for in variety. Because McDonald’s is offering it in three formulations: the Crispy Chicken Sandwich, a fried chicken patty with thick crinkle-cut pickle chips on a potato roll, the Spicy Chicken Sandwich, which is the same thing plus the inclusion of a spicy pepper sauce, and the Deluxe Chicken Sandwich, which features the fried patty, iceberg lettuce, and tomatoes.

A quick ranking of these sandwiches would have us put them in the following order from worst to best: Crispy, Deluxe, Spicy.

The Crispy’s major flaw is just how boring it is. My sandwich arrived with two pickle chips, it’s dry, surprisingly thick, but too boring to win any real fans. This sandwich is begging for a sauce, McDonald’s is clearly going for a Chick-fil-A vibe here but with the lack of peanut oil and this mid-grade chicken patty, it doesn’t come close.

On to the Deluxe, which is a considerable improvement over the Crispy thanks to the inclusion of lettuce and tomatoes. It’s fine, not really worth getting into.

The star of the show is the Spicy. It fixes the problem that weighs down the Crispy with the inclusion of a spicy pepper sauce that actually packs a pretty good kick. The heat hits you immediately, with a black pepper aftertaste that tames the spice nicely. We’d love to dip fries in it! I like this sauce way better than Popeyes’ spicy sauce used on their famed chicken sandwich, but unfortunately, McDonald’s still hasn’t quite nailed the chicken patty aspect. It’s definitely the highest quality chicken breast McDonald’s has ever had — thick, juicy, and the batter has a nice crisp to it — but it still can’t really compete with Chick-fil-A or Wendy’s and comes nowhere near what Popeyes (its obvious progenitor) offers.

The Bottom Line

The Spicy Crispy Chicken Sandwich is McDonald’s best chicken sandwich yet. But it’s still got a ways to go.

Popeyes Cajun Flounder Sandwich

I get that fast food sandwiches rarely match the delicious eye candy that is their promotional material, but the difference between what Popeyes advertises as their Cajun Flounder Sandwich versus what it actually looks like is, frankly, ridiculous. The fried fish filet is about half as thick, the tartar sauce does not spill over the edge, and the thing isn’t bursting with pickle chips. All that stuff is in there, but looking at it from the side you see mostly bread. It has a very unappetizing and bland appearance to it — which is a shame because it smells great.

Admittedly I’m not the biggest fried fish sandwich fan, so take all of this with a grain of salt. Popeyes choice of flounder is a solid one — most brands go with Alaskan pollock. Flounder is a very agreeable fish, it has a very mild almost neutral flavor to it, it has a flaky and light texture that is easy to chew through and a mildly sweet aftertaste that pairs nicely with Popeye’s spicy cajun breading. I wish this had a spicier bite to it, though.

The tartar sauce is boring and the batter-to-fish ratio is skewed, with the amount of batter matching the thickness of the filet. Popeyes, your batter is good, but not that good.

The fish filet is pretty good quality, but this sandwich would do well with some sort of slaw that it could sit atop — that would help to marry the flavors together.

The Bottom Line

A far cry from the fast-food culinary masterpiece that is the Popeyes Chicken Sandwich. One of the best filets in the game, but weak construction that doesn’t hold up well with other Popeyes offerings.

Wendy’s Jalapeño Popper Chicken Sandwich

I didn’t take a picture of this sandwich for a couple of reasons, 1) I got it really late at night, and 2) By the time I unwrapped it at home it looked like a brutal car crash,

I’d be doing this sandwich no favors by showing you what it actually looks like. So instead, enjoy this beautiful press photo. That photo is definitely false advertisement, but that goes for all of these sandwiches. Of all the sandwiches I ate today, this one was easily the best, and that’s surprising because I had it last, when I was all sandwiched out.

The Jalapeño Popper Chicken Sandwich features Wendy’s delicious spicy chicken patty smothered in jalapeńo cream cheese, some kind of radioactive cheddar cheese sauce, pickled jalapeños, shredded pepper jack cheese and served on Wendy’s buttery-as-hell buns. It’s an absolute cheese bomb and if you’re looking at that ingredient list wondering how anyone can possibly taste all of those individual ingredients I’m here to tell you: You can’t!

What you do taste is a sort of amalgam of those things, mashed up. Which works. It’s just a beast of a flavor bomb.

The final product is slightly smokey, decadently cheesy, pleasingly crunchy, and incredibly savory, with flavors that marry well, providing a juicy mouthfeel and a spicy aftertaste that lingers between bites. Wendy’s didn’t pull a Jack in the Box and throw actual jalapeño poppers in a chicken sandwich and call it a day, they got high concept with it, delivering all of the elements of a jalapeño popper — the creamy cheese, the crispy crunch by way of the inclusion of bacon, and of course, the jalapeños — resulting in a better end product that doesn’t feel like a shameless food-for-the-sake-of-social-media-chatter stunt.

The Bottom Line

It sounds and looks insane, but the Jalapeño Popper Chicken Sandwich comes together brilliantly. A hit by Wendy’s.

The NBA has a long and colorful history when it comes to nicknames. There are a few ground rules, though. First and foremost, you can’t give yourself a nickname (See Kevin Durant’s ill-fated attempt to dub himself “The Servant,” of all things). Secondly, you can’t very well take someone else’s nickname.

Both LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges have both found themselves subject to the latter rule recently. “Melo” will, of course, always belong to Carmelo Anthony, and, at the very least until he’s out of the league any reference to a “Melo” will bring the future Hall of Famer to mind. As a solution, a combined nickname has been floated around that would take care of both of them, “AirBnB,” although Ball had something of a lukewarm reaction to that idea recently.

On Wednesday, the Hornets broadcast crew casually referred to Bridges as “Agent Zero,” a nod to his jersey number, but even Bridges himself quickly rebuffed on Twitter after the game with the understanding that it’s the sole property of Gilbert Arenas.

I agree Agent 0 off limits

— Miles Bridges (@MilesBridges) February 25, 2021

It’s not that Arenas couldn’t stand to relinquish this one. “Hibachi” is a pretty incredible consolation prize, but good luck convincing Arenas, and more importantly, NBA fans to part ways with it. In any case, it was a strange night for nicknames, in general, as Thaddeus Young found out about a “Thagic Johnson” moniker that’s apparently been floated.

Yall got to stop … I’m in tears … https://t.co/fNAVdCn7VJ

— Thad Young (@yungsmoove21) February 25, 2021

For Bridges, it might be time to settle on “Sky Miles” once and for all, as it has all the makings of a solid memorable nickname, including the pun on his name and the reference to his aerial feats. He could certainly do a lot worse.

Last year Chloe x Halle broke out in a big way due to their sophomore album Ungodly Hour, a follow-up to 2018’s Kids Are Alright. These sisters have been on the mainstream radar for a while though because of an early co-sign from none other than Beyonce herself, who took them under her wing and has been helping them prepare for the greatness they were clearly destined for. Even during a pandemic and a year of economic chaos, Ungodly Hour became one of the most talked-about R&B records of the year, spawning hits like “Do It” which spawned a star-laden remix featuring Doja Cat, Mulatto and City Girls.

As their profiles have grown — Halle for her role playing Ariel in a new live action version of The Little Mermaid and Chloe for simply just posting photos and videos of herself on social media (haters gonna hate) — they’ve continued to focus on this breakout record. A few days ago they announced that a video for the record’s title track would be dropping this week, and tonight the intergalactic clip is here. Whether they’re cavorting in the ocean wearing studded bodysuits, or shapeshifting in space age glittery dresses, it’s impossible to take your eyes off these two performers, especially when they’re dancing side by side. At one point, Halle even poses with a lit chandelier on her head as a crown. It’s an extravagant, exuberant video to match the tone of the song. Watch the new clip above.

Fans of St. Vincent won’t have to wait too long for her next album. Street posters promoting the upcoming release, entitled Daddy’s Home, have popped up on Reddit. The advertisement used a 1970s-esque aesthetic that featured Annie Clark herself beside a lengthy statement that provides details for the upcoming effort. “St. Vincent is back with a record of all-new songs. Warm Wurlitzers and wit, glistening guitars and grit, with sleaze and style for days,” it says. “Taking you from uptown to downtown with the artist who makes you expect the unexpected. So sit back, light up, and by all means have that bourbon waiting, because … DADDY’S HOME.”

The lower right corner of the advertisement reveals that the album will arrive on May 14 via Loma Vista. Seeing that some of her fans had caught wind of the poster, the singer acted oblivious to it all and posted a tweet that said, “Nothing to see here.” The upcoming project will be St. Vincent’s first full-length release since 2017’s Masseduction. The news of the upcoming project comes after she confirmed that a new album would arrive in 2021 during an interview with UK magazine Mojo (via r/indieheads on Reddit).

“[The album marks] a tectonic shift. I felt I had gone as far as I could possibly go with angularity, she said. “I was interested in going back to the music I’ve listened to more than any other — Stevie Wonder records from the early ’70s, Sly And The Family Stone. I studied at the feet of those masters.”

You can check out the Daddy’s Home street posters above.

There is, I think, something missing from the WandaVision discourse right now. It wasn’t always missing. In fact, it kind of dominated coverage early on, back when this was all new and fresh. But in the weeks since, people have moved on. They want to talk about the way the show parcels out its plot (“too slow!”) (“actually, it is fine!”), and which appearances by other characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe they would like to see (“Magneto!”) (“Korg!”), and Kathryn Hahn (“Kathryn Hahn!”). This is fine, as all of these are worth discussing at some point in the process, but I do think it is causing us to veer slightly away from the most important thing about the show: WandaVision is still, almost two months into its run, weird as hell.

The weirdness might be wearing off for you at this point if you’ve started to accept what the show is and does, but please, if you have any doubt, try something for me: Explain the show to a person who does not watch it. It’s better if they are, at most, casually familiar with the Marvel movies. And it’s better than that if you, like me, are really only familiar with the characters from the movies. I attempted to do this recently. It went something like this…

“So two of the Avengers, the witch and the robot, who were kind of bad but then good, fell in love, but then the robot died, twice, so now the witch — who is played by the younger sister of the Olsen twins — sort of created a whole fake fictional universe inside a town in New Jersey where the robot is alive again, and each episode of the show is like styled based on a genre of sitcom — Bewitched, Brady Bunch, Modern Family, etc. — and the FBI and various secretive government agencies are outside this forcefield trying to investigate it all and also one of them figured out how to watch the episodes of the show within a show on an old television in the science lab. And that’s when things start getting strange..”

It’s a blast. You’ll sound like you’ve lost all of your mind. And that’s before you even get to the part about Kathryn Hahn playing a secret magical villain who traps Wanda in her demonic basement dungeon after babysitting the rapidly aging twins Wanda and Vision had. The nice thing is that even the characters in the show acknowledge how wild it all is.

This is all very cool to me. I like when things are ambitious and weird, and I especially like it when things are that way when they don’t have to be. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a multibillion-dollar enterprise on its own as well as a lucrative property in the multi-multibillion-dollar Disney portfolio. The instinct when dealing with intellectual property with stratospheric dollar values like this is often to play it safe, to not rock the boat, or, one imagines, to not take your golden goose and twist it into a tribute to sitcoms from before most of the audience was born. The fact that they’re doing it — that they’re even trying it — is pretty neat. I don’t often find myself in the position of congratulating massive conglomerates for artistic choices, but I also don’t often find myself watching a television show targeted at the “comic book fans who are also students of the sitcom format throughout history” genre. It’s an odd position to be in. Not as odd as say, being a civilian inside the MCU and discovering that a famous witch resurrected her robot lover and is keeping him alive inside a manufactured mini-universe that occasionally pays tribute to Malcolm in the Middle, but still, odd.

Does it help that Wanda and Vision are two of the, let’s just say it, lesser Avengers, at least from a lunchbox-and-action-figure standpoint? I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. There’s a little less to lose with these two characters and therefore less of a reason to not swing for the fences. But let’s also remember that Marvel turned the Thor franchise over to Taika Waititi and he proceeded to a) make Thor hilarious, and b) make Hulk a big pouty child who gets huffy when he doesn’t get his way. There is history here. Marvel has not been afraid to zig and/or zag for the sake of a good time. Look at my sweet cranky prince.

And getting this weird has paid off for WandaVision in other ways, too, and yes, this is where we discuss the performances on the show. Paul Bettany has nailed every sitcom dad/husband trope they’ve thrown at him. Elizabeth Olsen is carrying the emotional core of the show while also doing spot-on versions of everyone from Mary Tyler Moore to Julie Bowen. Kathryn Hahn — Kathryn Hahn! — has been a delight from the start, playing note-perfect iterations of various nosy neighbors from decades gone by, everything from “1950s housewife who stops by to borrow an ingredient for a recipe as a ruse to snoop around your business” to “Jazzercise-obsessed neighbor who stops by after a workout to say hi as a ruse to snoop around your business.” Even if every other part of the show fell flat, it would be worth it for giving her this kind of playground to run amok inside for 30 minutes a week. I am so excited to see what she does now that she gets to be openly evil for huge chunks of television. I hope she cackles directly into the camera for 25 seconds straight to start the next episode.

I assume the weirdness will dial itself down a bit as the show zooms toward the end of its season. It almost has to, just because the business of explaining how and why all this has happened will decrease the anarchy of it just, like, happening. But let’s not overlook the path the show walked to get there, the one it asked the audience to follow it down, the one that was twisty and bumpy and sometimes featured rascal storks out of nowhere and eventually brought in Randall Park and Kat Dennings to investigate. The whole thing could have been a convoluted mess. I suppose it still could be in its last few episodes. But even if that happens, even if it all falls to pieces in the home stretch, I’ll still appreciate that it made the effort, if only because an ambitious failure is more interesting than a boring success. WandaVision is nothing if not ambitiously, fantastically weird. One day, if they’re taking requests over there, if they’re fully committed to getting goofy, I would still like a show set in the headquarters of a fictional newspaper inside the MCU, one that spans the length of the franchise from the first Iron Man to wherever it ends up, complete with a frazzled reporter attempting to write a front-page story about a big purple alien killing half of the planet’s humans. But for now, as far as big swings go, this will do just fine.

Chicago rapper Ric Wilson has seen his popularity slowly increase for quite some time now. In just the last year, he’s landed collaborations with Terrace Martin, BJ The Chicago Kid, and more, but his latest partnership finds him taking his talents to the other side of the world. Wilson teamed up with Japanese electronic band Chai in their new video for “Maybe Chocolate Chips.”

The video is laced with a collage-like aesthetic that features animated cutouts of Wilson and Chai. The song is an ode to beauty marks and the video uses chocolate chip cookies as a motif, there to represent moles people may find on their face. It’s their attempt to put a positive spin on these beauty marks.

and the constant appearance of chocolate chip cookies throughout the video is proof of the artists’ attempt to put a positive spin on the blemishes some may be insecure about.

Chai’s bassist and vocalist Yuuki spoke about the song’s meaning in a press release. “Things that we want to hold on to, things that we wished went away,” she said. “A lot of things happen as we age and with that for me, is new moles! But I love them! My moles are like the chocolate chips on a cookie, the more you have, the happier you become! and before you know it, you’re an original.”

The track will also appear on the band’s upcoming album, Wink, which arrives on May 21. It’s their first release since 2019’s Punk. As for Ric Wilson, he’s dropped his “Pull A James Baldwin” single last month, which served as the follow up to his 2020 EP, They Call Me Disco, with Terrace Martin.

You can watch the video for “Maybe Chocolate Chip” above.